back to article LG 42LF7700 HD TV

Click here to WIN an LG 42in Freesat HD TV worth £900 LG might not be the first name that comes to mind when selecting an HD TV set – the massive marketing campaigns of Sony, Toshiba and Samsung have seen to that. However, its new 42LF7700 set provides impressive image quality and admirable ease of use at a competitive price. …

COMMENTS

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  1. John Sager

    Upscaling?

    I'm not quite sure what you expected upscaling to give you. It can't create resolution that's not there in the first place. There is almost certainly some kind of digital filter in there to interpolate from 544 pixels up to 1920 for those crap SD sat channels that only provide 544 pixels of horizontal resolution, and a similar vertical filter to interpolate from 576 lines to 1080 lines. Perhaps LG just don't use that as a pointless marketing term.

  2. David Gosnell

    All very well...

    ... but back to the bad old days of pre-PVR Freeview, with a swanky digital signal and no way to record. Is there really anyone out there who only watches TV at time of broadcast? Yes, you can get a Freesat recorder, but there's umm, let's count them... one, right, and adding another £300 RRP to the already rather expensive bill.

  3. Rob Beard
    Boffin

    DVI

    Nice looking telly but I can't understand why you seem to make a big thing about being able to plug a computer (in this case Mac Mini) into the TV via DVI to HDMI. I mean it's part of the HDMI spec to be able to convert from DVI to HDMI. This is exactly how I have my home cinema PC plugged into my TV, bog standard NVidia Geforce 7300GS card with DVI into a DVI to HDMI cable (about £5 from eBuyer.com) and then into one of the HDMI sockets on the TV. Sure I don't get audio over DVI on this particular card but I just have an optical cable plugged into my home cinema receiver (which doesn't have HDMI anyway).

    I can see the benefit of having Freesat HD built in, but to be honest I bet you could get a 1080p TV and a separate Freesat HD box (about £150 for a Humax box) for less than £900, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if you could get a Freesat HD PVR and 1080p TV for less than £900 if you shop around.

    Rob

    Rob

  4. Sam York

    "However, it’s a shame that the 42LF7700 doesn’t have an upscaling option"

    Er, what?

    So how exactly is it filling the screen with a standard def picture then?

  5. James Le Cuirot
    Thumb Up

    "LG might not be the first name that comes to mind when selecting an HD TV set..."

    Actually it is for me. My current LG set is excellent.

  6. Jonathan Hogg
    IT Angle

    Whoah there!

    The photo clearly shows an Ethernet socket on the back, but no mention in the write-up of what it's for!?

    Didn't this used to be an IT publication?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So what's the Ethernet port used for?

    The photo shows an Ethernet port - what functions does the TV support when hooked up to a network?

  8. James Le Cuirot
    Linux

    Re: Ethernet port

    I'm not sure what the Ethernet port is for but given that my LG set has Bluetooth and a USB port for viewing photos and playing music, and also given that LG's sets run on Linux, it could be something quite interesting! My set also has an RS-232 serial port for external control.

  9. Gordon

    Ethernet part of FreeSat spec

    Alledgely to deliver Iplayer on the FreeSat boxes and tvs.......

  10. Thomas Bottrill
    Thumb Up

    Big fan of LG

    I'm a big fan of LG TVs - my current one is an older 1080p 32" model. They also usually come with a whole assortment of connections on the back - I have five games consoles, a PC and a Sky HD box plugged in and still have room for more stuff.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    freeview

    "...the 42LF7700 also has a hybrid TV tuner that will allow you to connect a standard aerial in order to pick up either conventional analogue channels or the Freeview digital service."

    Does it really have Freeview?

    Also, the ethernet port may be non-operational, but is still part of the Freesat spec.

  12. Nigel Whitfield

    Freesat IP services

    The Ethernet port is mandatory on Freesat devices, and will eventually be used to provide services like iPlayer, and enhanced interactivity.

    iPlayer on Freesat is supposed to come later this year; the set could conceivably use the port for other things, like DLNA, but it should at least enable iPlayer.

    Really though, unless you're desperate, why buy a new TV this year? Next year's models will have support for DVB-T2 and FreeviewHD as well

  13. Chris Holt
    Stop

    what about Freeview HD?

    will this telly decode Freeview HD (terrestrial)?

    it's (supposedly) coming in November when the analogue signal is turned off at Winter Hill (Granada area)

  14. cliff

    Scaling And Upscaling

    There's a difference between simple 'scaling' - increasing the size of the SD image to fill the larger HD resolution screen - and 'upscaling', which does indeed attempt to effectively increase the resolution of the original SD image (with the emphasis on 'attempt'...). The 42LF7700 does the former, but not the latter - though that's hardly a major criticism of a set in this price range.

    As for the Ethernet interface - LG will only tell us that it's for 'future use with Freesat'.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ethernet port + upscaling

    Ethernet port is a prerequisite for Every Freesat Device. My Humax Freesat PVR has one also. Currently useless, potential mooted purpose is for a BBC iPlayer type interface. Maybe LG will make theirs more versatile?

    Upscaling engines make a huge differnce when blowing a lo-def signal up to fill all of a more capable screen's pixels. eg, the Humax PVR is piss poor when outputting lo-def channels at 1080 via hdmi. If I feed my Panasonic screen with the raw low def signal via composite, the inbuilt graphics card does a much better job of filling in the pixel gaps,

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Nigel Whitfield

    "Really though, unless you're desperate, why buy a new TV this year? Next year's models will have support for DVB-T2 and FreeviewHD as well"

    That's true, but the DVB-T2 signal won't be rolled out across the whole country from day 1 - it's fairly dependent on digital switchover, which means some parts of the country could be waiting 3 years to see a T2 signal.

    There is also the *potential* to carry a lot more channels on a satellite link (Freesat has about 200 now), although obviously quantity and quality are not the same thing at all.

    And then there are people in poor reception areas, where a satellite dish is a quick and painless solution.

    So it isn't quite that cut-and-dried.

  17. Duncan
    Happy

    Competition fine print

    This bit of small print from the Reg competition to win this TV amuses me:

    "You agree to answer five questions on camera concerning your experience with the 42LF7700 and to allow the resulting video to be shown by LG and Register Hardware."

    Isn't that a bit hopeful that the winner is going to be a) photogenic and b) vaguely comfortable in front of a camera?

    "Tell us why you like this fine LG product?"

    "Ermmm... Ummm... well.... it's a flipping great screen; innt?"

  18. Christian Berger

    How large is the harddisk?

    How large is the harddisk? Or are we supposed to record onto USB sticks?

  19. Steve Netting

    100HZ?

    What significance does 100 Hz have on a TV which doesn't use a CRT? Are they implying a) 10ms response time or b) DSP magic to create fake frames?

  20. Simon King
    Alert

    'DVI' port is about resolutions

    As anyone who's tried to plug their pooter into some Samsungs that recommend a certain HDMI port for DVI->HDMI connections. The EDID (resolution table) for those nominated ports has the full native res of the panel exposed for a nice 1:1 desktop. Other ports often don't.

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